Josh
I would have liked more organization with the book and some potential editing by peers (the other contributors) before publishing. Clearly separating comics a little better, adding some theme organization/grouping. I also didn't expect a more conservative comic in a book that was promoted as being in an LGBTQ genre, but, to be fair, that's on me. I understand that not everyone is going to approach things the same and that's a big theme of the book - diversity.
Kate continued to work for the company a few years after the big break through. Kate tried to get jobs after the attempted rape, the sexual photos of the 18 year old recruit, the constant exploitation, and the everything else that was red flags.
Kate stayed because they couldn't find other jobs paying more. Then they got fired a few years later. Then they found a good safe corporate job. “The woman from Bryn Mawr had fully arisen”.
She throws out a lot about feminism, capitalism, misogyny etc. it's hard to judge this because we've all been wrapped in delusions about the world and systems we exist in. However, we don't all write a book to try to white wash our complicit acts within it. Sure, we can and should talk about our struggles with these oppressive systems, but there should either be an explicit narrative of it or there should be introspection. This memoir does a superficial level of each and feels more like a TMZ-esque segment.
Kate ends by saying she's going to Hollywood CBS to find her next big break/dream/escape from the oppressive nature of the clothing industry. I'm not sure if that's a joke or not.
Graebers popular books seem to be poorly marketed.
The point of the book isn't to give you an explicit theory - ultimately Graeber settles on Universal Basic Income as being the one idea he'll explicitly support in this text. It's more of a philosophical work intended to give anecdotal and historical commentary about the development of “bullshit” jobs in current capitalist societies, mainly America and the UK. The definition of bullshit jobs gets laid out while acknowledging that this system is also aided by misogyny, xenophobia, religion, militarism, racism, and the phobias/isms that come with protestantism. The definition of bullshit jobs itself is supported largely by anecdotes and is the idea that a large portion of our current jobs exist only because all the other jobs actively life-supporting our society are taken up by a smaller number of our population.
Our societies should have been alleviated with
fewer required working hours with more groups entering into the workforce and the aid of technological advancements, but they haven't been. Required working hours being the hours required to accrue money to support yourself and to aid your family/loved ones, but also the required hours in the sense that most of us aren't truly free to quit our jobs or tell a boss, “No, I'm not coming in for the next month.” At least not without serious repercussions.
The fear and danger that automation and technological advances would yield a catastrophe for the job market in essence only affects the rich and powerful. At least, in part, until the bullshit job comes in. The simplified reason being that if you had 100 people working 40+ hours a week and had an advance in technology to reduce the workload down to only needing 50 people at 40 hours a week or 20 hours for 100 people, then what are the rich and powerful to do? This leads to the game of the job market, political propaganda (unemployment numbers/total jobs/GDP), and ultimately the creation of (more) bullshit jobs. Bullshit jobs keep a working hierarchy that hinders a majority revolution that would occur. The danger of that revolution being people being able to spend their time as they choose. The danger of that being that it would lead to more free thinking and discussion. The danger of that is it leads to people being able to actively critique their environment and the employers/landlords/politicians. The danger of that being that the powerful could lose their grip as a shift majority class/caste consciousness could dissolve this systems structures that work to hinder the masses and enrich the few.
The personal anecdotes and the first half resonated better than the later half. There was too much time discussing the origin of the term gaslit. I would be more interested in reading other works now though. Doesn't feel like this book said anything new, but is rather a compendium of ideas already more rigorously communicated elsewhere.
I think this would have worked better as an essay. There's not enough historical information to make it a full length work and being a short book is probably testament to the faulty publishing industry. Had it stayed an essay, I likely would not have read it. However, I probably would have enjoyed it more.
The author says they've been researching poverty and its causes and then proposes the solution of poverty abolition through efficient government/“ethical” capitalism. It's a very shallow attempt to look at poverty in America and does almost know analysis beyond that of a frat bro proselytizing to drunken friends about how ethical and advanced their start up will be.
I think the arguments are counterproductive if the desire is equality and equity. Some arguments would increase othering. And some seem lacking insight.
I think the data portion is good, but the interpretation and politics are not my jam. Very neoliberal and trying to solve problems within the framework that creates the problems instead of thinking of changing the framework. (IE: there are no arguments about how the political/social system is failing by necessitating a caste/class system under oligarchical/plutocracy rule)
The synergy between the topics isn't there for me. The “science” topic is just a framework for themself to layer personal stories onto and this is 10 essays of mild self reflection. I would imagine this hits harder for people if they are a kindred spirit. I don't dig pop-sci books that don't give a perspective that I've not gotten from my own daydreaming. They don't actually engage with the literature or the field and ultimately I feel this is false marketing. I don't enjoy people rattling off wikipedia/Kurzgesagt quality “science” with their own interpretations that I feel most people could dream of while high on their couch in undergrad for the sake of storytellingHowever, I think this is a cool attempt. It just falls flat for myself.(I don't enjoy the broad sweeping statements/interpretations with science topics into avant garde esque art school exhibit emotional trip vibes. There's no need to squander science writing for the sake of sensationalism, but, again, this ties back into my problem with the book marketing.)
The reason the age and year published help to place this is that the author has a more “practical” view (some circles might say “boomer”). It's very much oriented around succeeding in school/work and refers to “aspies” in Silicon Valley and loves the pattern, word, art, engineering sort of categories for people that have “ASD”. I find it hard to be enthralled with an “advocate” when they are mostly advocating for equal exploitation under jobs. It is a great discussion to talk about everyone's value, but it becomes a stunted discussion when it focuses on jobs/education (education that is geared towards jobs) over individuals rights to fit in a system that allows them to best function.
There's some interesting ideas, but, maybe just because of the time, none of them are exactly novel.
Not looking for an advocate to fawn over the engineering of an iphone design and touting the failure of iphone designs being that apple just didn't have the right “aspie” mixture working on any given project.
Alicia: The schizophrenic discussions are conversations with the unconscious.
She's a mathematical genius. She can't explain why. She knows math but doesn't know what math is or where it comes from in the mind. The thalidomide kid and the others can't communicate fully to her in the same way as Kekule dream supposedly gifted him the structure of a benzene ring.
Bobby: a man growing up in the atomic age. He's grappling with everything that entails and his own struggles with purpose. He lost his sister and the love of his life. He's lost, confused, shut off from love, has abandoned science. He can't live without Alicia and not living means no more Alicia.
There's something about quantum entanglement here.
“His eyes took in the details of my body with a conflicted face that I knew well: even having seen all the facts of the case, he still wanted me. He wanted me despite knowing what that meant about him”
I'd add an extra comparison that this has traits of storytelling like that of the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”. You're in the persons POV and you're supposed to be judging yourself and your society and culture.
What a bonkers book.
I'll have to look up the TM fund that he supports with his name.
I'm sure meditation and relaxation would help people in high stress environments but what a bonkers notion it is to believe that it's a solution to any of the stressors (poverty/racism/misogyny/transphobia/war/inequality/inequity) other than a soothing balm.
What in the what was that final paragraph?
“Then he returned home, as he now knew, to die.”
Feynman was a rockstar of physics. He veered slightly out of the main, cultivated an animated persona, cherished approaching problems freshly and intuitively, he worked through several bouts of rare cancer forms, and was very very human. Lives lived like his are rare and will never occur again.
It is worth noting that he was above all human. His story is worth knowing because it shows how flawed he was and that he was a predatory sexist person. He aided in many military scientific developments (like all at Los Alamos) that lead to great war crimes (even if the science paved the way in other uses, Los Alamos was used to make a fist and beat the opponent into a bloody submission before we could be beaten and it was another instance of letting fear, paranoia, and greed tainting our development as humans.). When he was at Los Alamos he was what we consider to be a “young man” or a boy (late stage child?) in his 20's. It is inconceivable how this person lived and existed. A fascinating human story that doesn't fit the 438 pages of this book.
A note: if you come across someone playing the role of apologetic to Feynman's behavior, then they may not have the ability to appreciate an individuals achievements/existence without mythologizing/idolizing them. That's not a desirable trait for inquisitive minds to find in someone. (IE: don't let the person off the hook. Confront them that behaviors and acts can be condemned and that they shouldn't idolize individuals. It creates a sense of excusing predatory behaviors by writing them off as acts that a par for individuals of those time's. Playing what about-isms in order to avoid seeing the past/history as vividly as we can only does us a disservice to our own understanding and intellectual growth.)
I agree with the reviews on the ability to write everyday normalcy in a compelling way but the outlandish series of events were goofy for me and the trans character was so inorganically written that even with each character loving her it was just a big negative in the storytelling. Not to mention the trans character's individual storyline and letter to her son.
The book suffers from sentences used for shock value and the transvestite/trans-phobic trope of a lusty cross-dressing killer. It's two to three sentences staggered through the book, but it still creates a line of thought that cross-dressing is aligned with ill mind. Cormac later writes with what I remember to be a trans-positive character in The Passenger, but I read that in haste and while working nights and it warrants a re-read.
I think there's elements of isolation, human condition, social standards, cultural changes, and colonization criticism, but I wouldn't argue that any are “strong” other than Isolation and human condition. The human condition being creatures of equal creation who have changed little since their inception/evolution and suffer the same frailty of social development that some, like Lester, are deprived of. Isolation being obvious. The lack of development being Lester's family members had abandoned him or were killed (by themselves or otherwise) and he had “white hood” family relations. Mostly raised ambiguously alone on the fringe of society.
I do not doubt that some people find kinship in Lester. Aside from the murder/desecration of dead bodies and his lust that defies age boundaries, he's a lonely rural person. Still, one hopes that, when finding oneself engaged in conversation over this book, that the other individual(s) find Lester to be
an un-empathetic case.